Actor Kang Ha-neul is aiming for a ‘consecutive box office hit’ by consecutively releasing two leading roles in theaters. After the romantic comedy ‘30 Days’, which attracted over 2 million viewers in 2023 and succeeded in a long-term box office hit, he is targeting the spring theaters with ‘Streaming’ and ‘Opposition’, which are being released back-to-back in two years.

Kang Ha-neul will first release his leading role, ‘Streaming’, in theaters on the 21st. ‘Streaming’ is a work that perfectly captures the current social atmosphere where various real-time internet broadcasts are overflowing, and is a thriller that depicts the story of the hottest internet broadcaster in Korea chasing a serial killer through a real-time live broadcast.

It is expected to provide fresh fun to the audience with the development that progresses in ‘real time’ as if watching an actual live broadcast, the one-take filming that brings the liveliness to life, and the details that seem to transfer the live broadcast platform to the screen as it is.

In addition, as the ‘one streamer’ character in the play, Kang Ha-neul‘s acting and screen control, who leads the entire story by himself to the point of being almost a ‘one-man show’, are expected to be the deciding factor in the success or failure of the film. In particular, Kang Ha-neul in the play perfectly digested the long and extensive lines due to the nature of the work being conducted in one take. Regarding this, he said, “It was a huge amount of lines that is rare to see in regular movies. “From the first scene, the amount of lines was 2-3 pages of A4 paper,” he said, sticking out his tongue.

Director Jo Jang-ho said, “I was worried because there were too many lines, but when I first met him, he smiled brightly and said, ‘Just trust me.’ I was a bit skeptical at first, but I was really impressed when I saw that he really memorized so many lines and even added ad-libs.”

A month later, on April 23, he will meet audiences again in another leading role movie, ‘Opposition Party.’ Hive Media Corp, a production company that has achieved both box office success and artistic quality with each of its works including ‘Harbin’, ‘Spring of Seoul’, and ‘Insiders’, is confidently releasing a new work. It depicts the story of a broker who designs the South Korean drug ring known as the ‘Opposition Party’, a prosecutor who wants to climb higher, and a detective who has risked everything to crack down on drug crimes, all of whom have different goals and become entangled.

This work draws attention by putting the subject of the ‘Opposition Party’, an unknown broker who actually exists in the backroom dealings of South Korean drug investigations but is not well known to the public, at the forefront. Kang Ha-neul plays the title role of the opposition party Lee Kang-soo, and he forms a love triangle with Yoo Hae-jin, who plays a prosecutor, and Park Hae-joon, who plays a detective. The acting synergy that the three actors Kang Ha-neul, Yoo Hae-jin, and Park Hae-joon will show is the point of interest in this film.


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.